


Push and Shove Do You Feel Better Now

by hedgerowhag



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bickering, Featuring: using office chairs for swimming, Fluff and Humor, M/M, and the most angry hand holding u've ever seen, for anyone who feels like shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 14:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12483564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgerowhag/pseuds/hedgerowhag
Summary: One library. Two students. One is sleep deprived the other is on his sixth cup of coffee after sleeping for twelve hours. Who will survive.--Hux scratches the collar of his turtle neck sweater as he draws circle around words in his lecture notes. He has been awake since four in the morning and he is only here this late because Ben asked if they could get the coursework prep done together. Hux supposed it would do Ben some good, but he has yet to see Ben do something.





	Push and Shove Do You Feel Better Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nereidlilies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nereidlilies/gifts).



> this was done for shits and gigs so dont take it too seriously y'all
> 
> title is from room for 2 by dua lipa

“One look at you and I can’t disguise, I’ve got— _Hungry eyes_!”

Office chair wheels rattle down the library floor, bumping on the wrinkles of the carpet strip. Plastic scrapes on the wood as the back of Hux’s chair is grabbed and yanked several inches down the length of his desk.

“Ben—!” Hux turns and whacks his pen on the kid’s head, sending him off with chocked up giggles.

With short scoots on the office chair, Ben makes it down the rows of desks and grabs the edge of the last table, turning the corner. Even from there, Hux can hear the music coming out of Ben’s earbuds, echoed by the mumble of Ben’s voice – butchering the lyrics.

“Now I’ve got you in my sights—!” Ben swings around and thrusts a finger toward Hux. His face is red from the rounds he did around the stretch of tables.

“With these hungry eyes—!” Ben wails, dramatically gesturing to his eyes that rarely make an appearance from under the flop of his hair.

Hux is twitching his pen, making scratch marks as he stares Ben down while the kid flails in the chair in a mimicry of the song.

They have been in the library since their classes finished and Hux’s phone is telling him that it’s now nearing eleven. The halls had filled and emptied around them and not even once Hux saw Ben use his scrappy pile of notebooks or the laptop, besides to play the chrome browser t-rex runner. Occasionally, Ben picked at worksheets and stared blankly at them before trekking down to the cafeteria to bring back a Styrofoam cup of dispensed coffee.

He has made the same trip at least six times and slurped his prize across the table from Hux while wiggling so much it seemed like the screws in his seat would come undone. Hux almost asked him to leave until he remembered that his agreement to go with Ben to the library is the only commitment that is forcing the kid to face his lack of progress.

Hux scratches the collar of his turtle neck sweater as he draws circle around words in his lecture notes. He has been awake since four in the morning and he is only here this late because Ben asked if they could get the coursework prep done together. Hux supposed it would do Ben some good, but he has yet to see Ben _do_ something.

There are crisp printouts lying at the back of Hux’s folder, unsorted and without punched holes for the clip. Hux is edging them out, scanning the information with slowly blinking eyes. None of this due within another week and Hux is hungry enough to chew the paper.

“Ben.”

He looks up from his attempt at swim-crawling on the office chair that he stole from a computer lab in the opposite hall. He is holding the edges of his flannel shirt like wings while his phone plays ‘Higher Love’.

“Let’s go,” says Hux, packing the papers haphazardly in the folders.

Twitching and snapping with the caffeine buzz, Ben shrugs on his tattered black parks and straps a red beanie over his hair. The poor excuse of a scarf is swinging to his knees as he jogs after Hux, still shoving his laptop and notebooks into the shambled sack that is apparently a backpack.

The light switches on in the library rooms as Hux walks through their doors. The static of Ben’s music follows him in the cinching corridors between the bookshelves. There is a damp smell from the walls and dust sticks to the ceilings in ribbons.

The toes of Ben’s boots stub on a desk as he rushes toward Hux and asks, “Got tired or something?”

“Yeah. From actually doing _something_ ,” Hux parrots and rolls his eyes as he sharply turns on his heel and skirts into a side staircase, making Ben collide with his shoulder.

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean!” Ben yells, shoving his broad-shouldered figure through the doorway after Hux.

Clipping closed his briefcase, Hux swings on the shoulder strap while Ben charges in his steps like a mismatched, outdated pile of clothes that barely fits in the stairway. The emergency sign LEDs buzz overhead as they walk out into a study hall with a glass wall stretching the span of the floor.

“I’m meaning to say,” Hux eventually retorts through his thin, scratching scarf, “is that you asked me to come here with you so that you can do something productive while I help you, but you did nothing but be an imbecile!”

“I wasn’t being an imbecile,” Ben mumbles back. His feet are kicking up as if in a moody dance.

They are good enough friends for Hux’s words not to have a real sting when he says, “You made me baby sit you, moron.”

The absence of footsteps makes Hux turns. The earbuds are swinging around Ben’s fingers like a cowboy’s lasso as he yanks out the jack and music plummets from his phone. Hux watches his torn parka swing as Ben pulls out a chair from a row of tables and uses it to step onto a desk to the sound of the too-familiar Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

Hux turns his back to Ben and walks onward to the doors while the steps of a dance swing after him.

“It’s making me crazy wondering where you are—!”

An unevenly footed desk clatters as Ben skips over it and skids into a shuffle in some horrid rendition of The Breakfast Club. His boot leave scuffs of cheap rubber and dirt on the glossed wood a he throws himself forward in some loose-limbed dance.

To his own regret, and horror, Hux slows down turns to squint up at Ben. The kid’s hair is obstructing his face as he gestures to the song, flinging out his arms and doing something odd with his hips.

“Tonight I’ll be talking to the moon and that star—” croons the speaker of Ben’s phone and Hux can hear him following along to the song.

“Why do you have to make everything a spectacle?” Hux sighs – too tired to say anything else. His shoes squeak on the carpet as he drags his feet along.

Ben pushes back his snarled hair and sticks his tongue up against his teeth as he grins. The blue gunk of a sucker stains the corners of his mouth and it should look disgusting. Hux can smell the coffee on his shirt from feet away.

“Being with you it’s as if— As if you are being dragged into one of those—” Hux rolls his tongue on the words. He gestures. “One of those hipster movies with musical numbers. Or something.”

Ben rocks on his toes on the edge of the table as the music shudders on the windows behind him. “Well, being with you, most eloquent Hux, is like being in a British crime novel.”

Hux’s mouth scrunches in a question.

“They’re all intelligent ‘ooh’s’ and ‘aah’s’ and nods and shit that don’t add up to anything,” Ben tells him as he turns with the change of the song and walks on, leaving Hux to follow.

“Are you calling me a pompous idiot?” Hux doesn’t notice the strap of his briefcase slipping from his shoulder as he chases up to Ben.

“Go figure, right?”

Ben steps off the table onto a velvet padded chair, leaving dust prints as he rattles to the floor. The jack of his earbuds snaps at the corner of the table.

Without a single gibe to follow the conversation through, they walk to ground level of the college library. Once they are in the vicinity of the lobby Ben’s phone starts to buzz frantically in short bursts. The music goes off.

Hux watches him from a pace back as Ben grins at the flickering screen of his phone and walks faster toward the exit.

“Real friends finally coming through?”

Ben swings around on his heels, backpack slamming into the door he is keeping open with his fingertips. Hux is struggling to hold back a pout as he waits for Ben to get his words.

“Ready to bitch to them about spending the most boring afternoon in a library with a stuck-up idiot?” Hux’s teeth squeak when he forces his mouth to close.

Ben jerks back his head, confused, as he steps into the hall of the lobby.

Hux follows him out, letting the door slam. “Go on, run off then,” he says.

Walking backwards between the cardboard backed couches, Ben keeps staring at Hux. His lip is jerked up as if he is trying to phrase something.

Hux yanks on the strap of his bag and hunches as he walks around Ben. But then the belt on his trousers is grabbed through his coat and used to swing him back toward the corridor.

Shoes scrape on the floor and hands batter for freedom, but no one moves anywhere as Ben links his arms through Hux’s from behind. Both are the same height and Ben gets a mouthful of crusty gel when Hux tries to slam his head into Ben’s teeth.

“Fuckin’ stop fighting!” Ben grunts as he steps over Hux’s attempt to trip him. “What’s wrong with you!”

“What’s wrong with _me_?” Hux riles, trying to twist out his arms. “Get off me, you fucker!” Then, Hux tips back until Ben is forced to let go or fall onto the carpet once he loses balance.

With his feet back under him, Ben goes to grab for Hux but is too slow and Hux is stepping out of reach with his back to exit – his jack-knife elbows pointed outward.

Ben steps toward him and Hux matches him step for step, dodging the slide-out desks beside the couches and the TV monitor stands. Ben grabs for Hux’s briefcase and drags him back across the carpet as Hux tries to struggle out of the shoulder strap.

A kick to Ben’s knee ends the fight. His leg wobbles and Hux snaps the strap out of Ben’s hand, stepping back with a smirk. He is swinging his bag over his shoulder while Ben winces and rubs at the budding bruise, hobbling.

“No, but seriously,” Ben wheezes. “What’s your problem?”

“Well, there is this moron. His name is Ben Organa. Rings a bell?” Hux’s face is red like he has been laughing, except his face is twisted up with a frown. “I’ve just spent four hours in the library on a Friday night because of him.”

Ben flings out his arms in a shrug. “We were studying?”

“I could have gone home and _slept_ for once in too fucking long while you could’ve entertained yourself with a chair that is just as easy to find in _your fucking dorm room_!”

Ben’s arms flop back down against his coat and his chin sinks into the ragged coils of his scarf. “Oh,” he mumbles.

“You didn’t even do shit!” Hux spits through his teeth.

Guilt muddled, Ben can’t look at Hux’s grey-edged, sleep deprived face. “I did,” he retaliates with a pout.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” There is no sincerity in Hux’s sorry. “Was I looking in the wrong direction the entire time? Was that some other guy destroying the college property?”

“No, I jus’—” Ben rubs a clump of hair under his beanie.

“You just what?”

“Had everything done.”

Hux’s mouth zips into a line that flattens as Ben watches his boots rub lines into the carpeting.

“I thought asking you to come with me to the library would get you to… Uh… Y’know, spend time with me?”

Ben trips on his laces when he is pummelled with kicks aimed to his ass. He is boxed into a couch where he falls with his knees up to stop Hux from making a target of bruises out of him. But another attack doesn’t come as a security of the library exit bleeps.

Ben unloops from the couch and runs toward the security gates. With a blip of his ID card he pushes through the revolving doors after Hux.

The pavement is clumped with wet leaves jammed into the cracks of the flagstones and Ben’s boots slide on the crushed muck. He runs from the light of the library doors into the empty plaza where Hux is marching through the dark.

“Hux—!” Ben can’t see shit, running in the drizzling rain as the streetlights glitch. “Hey, Hux—!”

With a slap of feet in a puddle, Hux stops. He shoves a hand toward Ben without turning. His fingers look strained, like he is trying to warn Ben off with his fucked-up nails that will bludgeon him if he tries anything.

“U-uh—” Ben toes around the out-stretched hand. “You—okay?”

The open palm is slammed into Ben’s chest as Hux barks at him, “Hold my hand, you fucker!”

Ben clutches the fingers and wrist with both hands reflexively. Hux clamps onto Ben’s palm and drags their joined hands down between them.

Ben pulls his stare from Hux’s bony fingers cinched on his knuckles to his scrunched face that is suddenly coming closer through the misted rain. Hux’s eyes are snapping shut as his reluctant lips clash with Ben’s in a chapped kiss.

With a dumb stare and slack lips, Ben watches Hux duck away and grunt, “Fuck you.”

“’Kay,” Ben gulps when Hux goes in for a second go, licking his cold raw lips and printing them against Ben’s mouth.

Swallowing on the giggles lodged tight on his tongue, Ben slings his arms onto Hux’s shoulders. His laughter becomes a fit when he feels Hux start to growl from the swinging steps into which Ben leads him.

 

 

 


End file.
